Stars & Stripes letters: Generals must step in/Policymakers not in fight

[lebkuchen]

Two excellent letters to Stars & Stripes start out the week. I will add them to The List:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/12/18/45138/421

Generals must step in

Grand jury evidence from Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald almost certainly proves that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney exposed undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame by leaking selected portions of a report that seemed to rebut criticism for invading Iraq.

Cheney aide “Scooter” Libby, indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice, testified that he met with reporters to leak this information. The reporters testified that Libby did reveal the agent’s name.

The most recent Gallup poll showed that 63 percent of Americans believe that Bush acted illegally or unethically in the “Plamegate” affair. If not prosecutable, exposing an agent is a national security betrayal. Bush’s subject-changing lie that he declassified information so the “American people could know the truth” is irrelevant. Bush’s “declassified” information was cherry-picked from a report that in subsequent paragraphs discounted that same information. It’s news to the CIA, the Pentagon and Congress that a presidential leak equals declassification.

The special prosecutor states that the “presidential leak” was a vendetta against the CIA agent’s husband, who disputed Bush’s false justifications to invade Iraq.

Bush’s similar plans to bomb Iran with tactical nuclear weapons are documented by Seymour Hersh in the April 4, 2006, New Yorker magazine and The Washington Post’s Tom Ricks. The too-familiar goal to control oilfields by U.S. energy companies with Halliburton no-bid contracts is again called “regime change.” Cheney’s daughter, heading the State Department’s Iran-Syria Operations Group, controls $80 million to develop this agenda.

This radical endangerment of national security and world stability reportedly caused several Joint Chiefs of Staff to threaten resignation. They are disgusted at the brazen incompetence of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Cheney.

Bankrupting the treasury, creating crushing debt, and sacrificing lives to reward friends with war profits will persist until our bullied generals stop it.

M.D. Wooldridge
Berlin


Policymakers not in the fight

My son, a two-tour Iraq war veteran, recently told me about the Army’s new policy regarding responding to attacks on convoys in Iraq. The convoys will now “stand and fight” rather than fire and run as was previously the practice. According to an officer quoted in the March 31 article “Convoys to take ‘the fight to the enemy’”, the old policy “gave bad guys the perception that Americans run away.”

I have two children in this war, one active and one reserve, and I am a Vietnam War veteran who has had infantry training that I put to use. I learned one thing in Vietnam that has held me in good stead regarding military adventurism: One who spouts bravado is usually not the one taking the fire.

This seems to be the case in this new policy.

President Bush and his crew created a mess that we will live with for years; many have died for already, and some, like my son, may die for in the future. When policies such as the one identified in your article are put in place to give a perception that we are brave (this has never been in question), it does nothing more than give some of the gutless wonders who make our policy the sense that they are brave. How about the men and women who are affected by the policies? “Bring ’em on” is a term used by those who have no backbone and less foresight. It is these people who will send others off to die for a questionable cause while telling their own to go shopping.

As for my son, he told me that he and any crew he is part of will not be made grease spots for this policy to “stand and fight.” He will be putting the pedal to the board and getting out of a fight as quickly as possible so that he can possibly come home in one piece.

After having read some letters published in your paper, I have the impression that only those who are pro-war and pro-Bush are represented there. I hope that isn’t your policy and that my view will be given notice.

David Kannas
Seattle

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=125&article=36519

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

1. I wish Joe Sixpack could get this through his head

“Bring ’em on” is a term used by those who have no backbone and less foresight. It is these people who will send others off to die for a questionable cause while telling their own to go shopping.

If middle America understood this, *'s approval numbers would be in the teens.

[lebkuchen]

2. booting up

because these two writers deserve it.